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Weather Service Firing Official Who Hit Budget Cuts in Post Interview

"The National Weather Service moved to fire one of its top managers Friday, four days after he was quoted in an article in The Washington Post lamenting that budget cuts and the threat of further reductions in March were forcing him to pare back a public safety service."

"William Proenza and his supporters called his firing a retaliation for going public with a plan to shut down radars on sunny days in the South to save power costs. But the Weather Service’s acting director said there was no such connection and, in his termination letter, cited Proenza for the transfer under his watch of $528,000 between accounts last year without authorization.

Proenza, 68, led the Weather Service’s Southern region and ends a 50-year career at the agency that included a controversial tenure as the head of Miami’s National Hurricane Center, one of meteorology’s most visible jobs."